Wednesday 4 January 2017

The Federal Trade Commission sent me a "complaint"

this morning...or did they?
It looked very convincing. It told me my "company" was being investigated under an act that does actually exist. I don't own a company. I don't work for one either. It was a scam but yes, quite a convincing one. The e-mail address even ended in "gov.uk" - except that there is no Federal Trade Commission in the UK and, if there was a complaint, they would write me a letter. What is more they would address me by my full name, not my email address.
But, I think scams are getting more sophisticated. Apparently it is now possible to reroute email addresses of all sorts into places where you would least expect them to go.  The email address you get given is a legitimate one but if you simply click "reply" then you will get rerouted. I have no idea how they do such things.
I had a scam email from "Barclay's Bank" in the UK  recently...except that I don't have an account with Barclay's. I do have a UK bank account but the amount in it would not be worth hacking and I have never activated an internet account with them. "Don't do it unless you absolutely need to" was the advice I was given.
I don't do internet banking. The Senior Cat doesn't like the idea. I know I'll come to it at some point. I'll get bills paid by direct debit and so on. If something goes wrong with that then it will be the bank's computer or the company's computer which has been hacked - not mine. 
I do sometimes buy something over the internet but I don't possess a credit card and the debit card I use has only a very small amount of money in it - just a little more than whatever it is I want to buy. If someone tried to hack it then they would not get much - and certainly not the thousands upon thousands they want. Every time security is increased the hackers will look for a new way around it of course. It is a challenge for them. I suspect they almost look forward to each new challenge.
Even if they had sent me a letter and I was a company I would be double and triple checking the information it gave. Is the street address correct, does someone with that name work there, and is the phone number and the mailbox number the same? It probably doesn't take much to get the same letter head changed to include a different mailbox. 
And yes, this morning's email was very convincing - except that there is no "federal" in "gov.uk". 
 

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